The invention relates to scoops for transferring liquids or particulate material from one container to another. Usually the scoop is also designed to measure the material as it is taken from a container. The type of scoop with which this invention is concerned is the spoon-like utensil having a bowl and a handle extending laterally from the top of the bowl. The scoop is preferably made of plastic material, but may also be made of metal. It may be marketed as such or may be supplied with the package of material that it is intended to handle.
As an example of a particular use of the scoop of the invention, lightweight and inexpensive scoops are frequently included in packages of powdered or granular detergents such as those used for washing clothes or dishes. Such scoops must be strong enough to withstand the stresses imposed while scooping up a load of the material from the supply container. The scoops are also usually intended and designed to serve as a measuring device so that the desired amount of material is taken for transfer to the point of use.
Since scoops of the type described are supplied without separate charge with the material contained in packages for sale to consumers, they must be inexpensive as well as strong. The invention contemplates scoops that are thermoformed from suitable plastic film material. For a shipment of the thermoformed scoops by the manufacturer and, equally important, for feeding the scoops in the material packaging machine, an indispensable requirement is that they must be stackable. Stackability requires not only that the bowls of the scoops may be telescoped with minimum space for each within the stack but also that individual spoons may be easily withdrawn from the tops of stacks without sticking problems Stop means formed in the structures of the scoops must permit maximum entry into the next lower scoops with certainty of position and the ability to retain all of the scoops in the stacks without relative movement resulting from any inward axial forces that may be applied in the course of packaging for shipment or handling the stacks as in packaging machines.
The object of the invention, accordingly, is to provide stackable plastic measuring scoops having the desirable and essential features above described. More specifically, the principal object of the invention is to provide thermoformed plastic scoops of the character described which are stiff and strong and efficiently and reliably stackable and feedable to meet all of the requirements of stackability. The scoops may also be useable for measuring a predetermined amount of material.